Your biggest challenge is probably not technical. It is getting everyone to listen to you. Then, make sure they agree on what the real problem is. Then making a decision. Then making sure that decision survives contact with lawyers, contractors, financiers, Boards and government. The project rarely fails because nobody knew what to do. It fails because nobody took control early enough. What are you waiting for? Speak up. Some ideas, below. THE ROOM: 15 Great Lessons of a Successful PPP...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Your client does not want another consultant. They want to walk into the next Board meeting knowing the project is under control. They want difficult decisions made early. Commercial risks understood. Contractors challenged. Stakeholders aligned. And no nasty surprises buried in a 200-page report. They do not aspire to manage complexity better. They aspire to make complexity disappear. That is the job. I learnt that the hard way… inspiration below. Once that you apply the lessons of those...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Gillette had taken razor technology to the point of absurdity. Five blades. Lubricating strips. Precision trimmers. Suspension technology. Even quantum anti-ageing effect on your skin. The biggest stars in sport and Hollywood to advertise them. And, of course, charged accordingly. Michael Dubin, today’s story hero, was tired of the whole thing. Tired of paying ridiculous prices for razor cartridges. Tired of having to ask a supermarket employee to unlock a glass cabinet every time he needed...
4 days ago • 2 min read
You arrive on Monday. You open your inbox. There are 63 unread emails. Three say “urgent.” Two contain decisions that should have been made six weeks ago. The contractor is waiting for an instruction. The public agency is waiting for more information… delaying an approval that you desperately need. The lenders are waiting for extra information to give you the blessing for a zero-cost unsubstantial change. And your team is waiting for you. You open the programme. The completion date has not...
5 days ago • 3 min read
In 1944, the predecessor of the CIA published a manual on sabotage in order to destroy enemy regimes. Not bombs. Not weapons. Meetings. Yes… meetings. The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, which was the name of the document, explained how ordinary people could quietly damage enemy regimes, organisations and whole countries from within. The instructions included: Cause delays. Insist on strict compliance with every procedure. Refer decisions to committees. Demand additional reviews and approvals....
6 days ago • 1 min read
Future-proofing infrastructure for the next two or three generations sounds responsible. It sounds visionary. It can also be a spectacular waste of money. Because the future rarely arrives exactly as predicted. Technology changes. Cities move. Demand shifts. Political priorities disappear. And yet, we keep designing enormous projects to solve every possible problem for the next 50 or 100 years. The result? One project eats the budget. It consumes the best people. It takes ten years to plan,...
7 days ago • 1 min read
There was already a port. The quays were there. The railway was there. The channel was there. The cranes were there. More or less. What was missing was cargo. In 2003, Mozambique handed the Port of Maputo to a public-private concessionaire. Yes… You know. PPP are not just roads and hospitals… It was a BOT model… where the B was probably more R of Rehabilitation. Well… At the time, the port was handling approximately 5 million tonnes per year. Last year, it handled around 32 million. Six times...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Final bid phase. BAFO. Best and Final Offer. Beautiful name, by the way. And my favourite thing ever… It’s not just that people show their faces under their masks… It sounds clean. Professional. Almost elegant. Like everyone is now putting their best offer on the table, shaking hands mentally, and preparing for a fair final comparison. Cute. Then a few smart guys decided to be very smart. Too smart. They started sneaking small changes into the agreement. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that looked...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Dakar–Diamniadio. A toll road. It reduced a journey of around 90 minutes to approximately 25. It opened on time. Within budget. Traffic exceeded expectations. And it became one of Africa’s best-known PPP case studies. So, naturally, “experts” looked at the contract. The financing. The risk allocation. The concessionaire. All important. But many were missing the secret sauce. Senegal spent around ten years preparing the project before the road opened. Ten years. Not ten PowerPoint...
9 days ago • 2 min read